by Nate Ryan, USA TODAY Sports

by Nate Ryan, USA TODAY Sports

JOLIET, Ill. - In a Friday the 13th decision that was as exceptionally stunning as it was numerically apropos, NASCAR added Jeff Gordon to its Chase for the Sprint Cup field Friday and vowed to establish concrete rules of etiquette to eradicate integrity-sapping scandals involving team orders.

NASCAR's 10-race championship will begin Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway with an unprecedented expansion to 13 drivers after the sanctioning body ruled that Gordon had been unfairly aggrieved in Saturday's race at Richmond International Raceway after two investigations of three teams' radio chatter revealed manipulation in the finish.

Front Row Motorsports and Penske Racing organizations were placed on probation (which encompasses all drivers and crewmembers), but NASCAR also decided to give Gordon a Chase spot because both incidents were hindrances to the No. 24 Chevrolet.

MWR driver Clint Bowyer spun to bring out the final caution, negating Newman's shot at a victory, and Bowyer and teammate Brian Vickers gave up several positions by making late pit stops that helped put Logano ahead of Gordon for the 10th and final Chase-eligible spot in the points so Truex could earn the wild card.

"It's been a roller coaster ride of emotions this week," said Gordon, who learned he'd been added to the field while watching the announcement on TV. "This is an unprecedented set of circumstances. I'm extremely happy for this. We're proud to be in it. An incredible set of opportunities now lie on our shoulders to show we belong in the Chase."

Gordon also tweeted his appreciation to all of his fans for their support.

NASCAR CEO Brian France said it was just "the right thing to do" to provide a Chase spot to the four-time champion.

"We believe in looking at all of it that there were too many things that altered the event and gave an unfair disadvantage to Jeff and his team, who would have qualified, and I have the authority to do that," France said in a hastily called news conference at the 1.5-mile speedway. "We are going to do that. It is an unprecedented and extraordinary thing, but it's also an unprecedented and extraordinary set of circumstances that unfolded in multiple different ways on Saturday night, and we believe this was the right outcome to protect the integrity, which is our No. 1 goal of NASCAR."

But Truex, who bore the brunt of NASCAR's penalties once he was removed from the Chase, is even more upset. By all accounts, Truex ran a clean race at Richmond and was just the recipient of the decisions made by Michael Waltrip Racing and his teammates. Yet he remains out of the Chase, despite no specific wrongdoings by him or his crew.

"It's just unfair," Truex says of NASCAR adding driver to Chase while he's still out.

NASCAR will meet with NASCAR team owners, drivers, crew chiefs and key team personnel Saturday at the track to review "the rules of racing and the ethical part of it," President Mike Helton said. France is expected to meet with the media again afterward Saturday.

"We're going to be very clear about that," Helton said. "But we owe it to the drivers, and we also want to get obviously input. There are lines. They will be much clearer coming out of (Saturday) than they are today. But listen, the most important thing is the integrity of the event, and we'll deal with that."

Helton said the meeting likely would set a new course for how NASCAR officiates races.

"We've had moments in the sport where NASCAR reacting to what has evolved on the racetrack and through the teams' actions, and we make a decision that shifts that paradigm, and that's what's happened this week," Helton said. "We used to race back to the (caution) flag (until 2003), and we stopped that. It changed the paradigm, so for several weeks after that, we had to define what that meant. So that's kind of the moment we're in."

Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson and Gordon have been among those who have called for major changes to policies, including monitoring all teams' radios for and stopping races to address it immediately if evidence of unseemly orchestration is discovered.

"We've got issues to address," Gordon said. "There are longterm solutions of how we get around these types of events ever occurring again. I know we'll leave with hopefully a crystal-clear set of guidelines."

NASCAR's decision gave Hendrick Motorsports four cars in the Chase for the Sprint Cup for the second consecutive season as Gordon joined Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne in being championship eligible.

"I applaud NASCAR for taking the time for a full review," team owner Rick Hendrick said in a statement. "What occurred at Richmond was not of their making, and they've had to wrestle with some very difficult decisions throughout the week. I know everything done by NASCAR has been a sincere effort to be fair and ultimately do what's best for our sport and our fans.

"We're extremely proud to have all four cars in the Chase for the second consecutive season. Jeff (Gordon) and the No. 24 team earned this spot, and we're going to leave everything on the racetrack during these last 10 (races). The support this week from our fans and partners has been incredible, and I'm proud of everyone at Hendrick Motorsports for the effort that's gotten us here. The Chase is going to be exciting."

France said the penalties for Front Row Motorsports and Penske Racing were lesser than those for MWR because the evidence wasn't as strong. The radio transmissions between Front Row driver David Gilliland, spotter David Keith and crew chief Frankie Kerr indicated the team was negotiating with Penske to allow Logano a position, but there was no such chatter on Logano's Penske channel.

In the case of MWR, spotter and general manager Ty Norris was suspended indefinitely after directing Vickers to pit under green because the team needed the point.

"We did not conclusively determine that Penske Racing and Front Row Motorsports actually did anything that we can conclusively say there was a quid pro quo or altering of the event," France said. "We're looking at the radio discussions (and) the idea of a bargain that is completely off limits in our view. But we don't believe that bargain ever happened, and we don't believe anything happened, other than the discussions about it, and that's why the probation is â?¦ an appropriate message there."

Logano's Penske teammate Brad Keselowski, who became the first defending champion to miss the Chase since Tony Stewart in 2006, wondered aloud on Twitter, if anyone will remember all this next year.

After changing its Chase field twice in five days, France was asked whether NASCAR would consider altering its longtime philosophy of not tampering with race results after the checkered flag. Even when winners are found to have illegal engines or parts (such as Matt Kenseth's victory at Kansas Speedway in April), NASCAR typically has elected to leave victories in place while issuing points penalties and hefty fines.

"We still stand by that basic premise that we'd like to know who the winner is Sunday night," France said. "What we're talking about here is a set of extraordinary circumstances in multiple ways with multiple drivers and multiple teams that impacted the race, and the only way to address it, we believe, is the way we have, punishing the teams that participated in that in some form or fashion, and trying to see if there was a way to make Jeff Gordon have an opportunity to race for a championship, which we believe he deserves."